One for the seething Britnats

[Confidemus]

Since the referendum result was announced, those that won have been more of a seething, angry mess than the valiant, spirited Yes lads. Yes voters, after a brief but intense period of depression have rallied and pushed on, whilst your angry Britnat has urged us all, with barely contained rage to "accept the settled will" and "move on".

This is for them. Wings over Scotland's first post since returning from holiday. Enjoy the seethe:

http://wingsoverscotland.com/by-ourselves-then/

By ourselves, then

The dust of the independence referendum is showing a distinct unwillingness to settle. Almost a month from the vote, alien observers would be hard pushed to identify Yes as the beaten side. SNP membership has more than tripled, and that of the Scottish Greens and SSP (much) more than doubled, in three weeks. The moribund Labour Party in Scotland has slumped in both Holyrood and Westminster polls. Newspaper sales figures continue to fall after not a single daily or national newspaper in the country backed the choice of almost half of the population.

Unionist politicians unnerved by the closeness of the result have advocated making independence actually illegal, and the Secretary of State for Portsmouth has issued a series of panicky warnings that the “nationalists” must not seek the best possible outcome from the figleaf Smith Commission (or, presumably, he’ll tell his mum).

Increasingly, the “once in a lifetime” referendum looks like only the opening skirmish.

There can have been few wars where the battle lines were more clearly drawn. The frenetic last two weeks, as the No campaign’s lead crumbled under its feet, saw the state broadcaster abandon even the slightest pretence of neutrality or fairness and the press ramp up the scare stories to blood-curdling levels – willingly assisted by millionaire celebrities and CEOs of multinational companies apparently terrified out of their very wits by the thought of having to conduct business in 153 countries instead of 152 – flushed out almost all of those who’d sought to hide their allegiance, and with the exception of Andy Murray they invariably declared for the devil they knew.

So everyone in Scotland knows who can and can’t be relied on, who can and can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and where everyone’s loyalties lie. That’s no bad thing. And the upshot, it seems, is that those who believe Scotland should be a country have come to the conclusion that they can expect no help, nor even basic fairness, and must take matters entirely into their own hands.

The outpouring of activity in self-created Scottish media since the referendum has been dizzying, and pretty much impossible to keep track of. Newsnet Scotland is now being edited by veteran ex-BBC broadcaster Derek Bateman, in a move we didn’t see coming. The creators of The Fear Factor, Scotland Yet and Dateline Scotland gathered over £34,000 in funding practically overnight just to do the preparatory work for a major and exciting new project. The Common Weal appears to have secured MONTHLY funding of almost £11,000 for various works. Other grassroots efforts like iScot and the Scottish Statesman have already taken their fledgling steps.

Many of the new developments will of course fall by the wayside over the coming weeks and months, leaving only the strongest to continue. Existing entities like Wings Over Scotland will seek to build on the six-figure audiences created over the last three years. Others yet to begin will doubtless appear as time goes on, niches are identified and alliances form. But one thing seems unquestionable – advocates of independence will never again place themselves at the mercy of the old media.

This site has already made its position clear. The BBC (which has a notional duty of impartiality) and the mainstream press (which doesn’t) have shown that they cannot be trusted with even the most basic journalistic responsibility of truth. We’ve already encouraged readers to stop paying the TV licence which funds the state broadcaster (while remaining within the law) and today we go further, by suggesting that Yes supporters have no relationship whatsoever with the BBC.

Like newspapers which offer column space to a single Yes voice amid an ocean of massively skewed and virulent pro-Union propaganda as a token show of fairness, every time an independence campaigner appears on a BBC current-affairs programme it allows the Corporation to feign impartiality, thereby justifying the rest of its coverage. When criticised for bias, it can simply say “Nonsense – look, we had X and Y on last week from your side, so we must be balanced”.

Such people sometimes protest that in return for giving the BBC’s output credibility they get to deliver their pro-independence message to a wider audience, but the fact is that most Scottish politics shows have tiny audiences of already-committed politics nerds. It seems to us the height of arrogance to imagine that two or three minutes of interrupted soundbites on Scotland 2014, watched by a few thousand people who almost certainly have unshakeably entrenched views, can ever have a worthwhile effect on anything but the commentator’s own media profile.

The SNP and other political parties have a responsibility and duty to engage with the media, of course, especially when in government, even if that media shirks its own responsibilities. But nobody else does. It’s this site’s belief that to participate in the output of the BBC is to confer unwarranted legitimacy on an organisation whose behaviour over the referendum was – on the whole and with some isolated honourable exceptions – a professional disgrace. In co-operating with them, therefore, the Yes side will merely sow the seeds of its own future downfall.

A freak alignment of events has presented the independence movement with the chance of a very early second bite at the cherry. Three political outcomes in the next three years – all of them individually plausible or even probable – may yet see a second referendum in 2017 or 2018, in much more favourable circumstances.

In the intervening time, the most important thing the grassroots Yes movement could achieve would be some degree of levelling of the media field, and that means not only supporting friendly initiatives but also starving out the enemy.

Our readers probably won’t need much urging to stop buying newspapers, or linking to their revenue-generating websites other than by devices like archive.today – they already know that every penny directed away from a media that served the people of Scotland so poorly over the referendum will strengthen the efforts of those trying to build a better alternative. But it’s perhaps time that the supporters of independence spent less time shouting angrily about media bias, because anger wins few converts.

In the same way that depriving hostile newspapers of money and traffic rather than complaining that they take a position – something they’re perfectly entitled to do – is a far more effective protest, the most (indeed the only) constructive thing the Yes side could do about the BBC would be simply to shun and discredit it as the organ of the establishment that it is, rather than imagining that a few hundred people yelling outside its doors once every few months will persuade it to change its ways.

If a second chance for Yes is indeed to arrive in 2017 or thereabouts (in the form of a majority Scottish Government calling an emergency referendum in the light of the UK voting to leave the EU while Scotland votes to stay in), it simply cannot afford to meekly co-operate in its own defeat again.

If the referendum was a boxing match, the referee was part of the opponent’s team, and in those circumstances you can only win by delivering a knockout blow with your own power, not by hugging the other boxer closely and hoping for a victory on points.

[forever_blue]

[Confidemus]

I didn't think I'd get the laughing smiley of rage this early.

Brilliant.

[BerwickMad]

"Laughing smiley of rage!" Haha. This is getting desperate.

[Confidemus]

Strike twa.

[forever_blue]

Since the referendum result was announced, those that won have been more of a seething, angry mess than the valiant, spirited Yes lads. Yes voters, after a brief but intense period of depression have rallied and pushed on, whilst your angry Britnat has urged us all, with barely contained rage to "accept the settled will" and "move on".

This is for them. Wings over Scotland's first post since returning from holiday. Enjoy the seethe:

http://wingsoverscotland.com/by-ourselves-then/

By ourselves, then

The dust of the independence referendum is showing a distinct unwillingness to settle. Almost a month from the vote, alien observers would be hard pushed to identify Yes as the beaten side. SNP membership has more than tripled, and that of the Scottish Greens and SSP (much) more than doubled, in three weeks. The moribund Labour Party in Scotland has slumped in both Holyrood and Westminster polls. Newspaper sales figures continue to fall after not a single daily or national newspaper in the country backed the choice of almost half of the population.

Unionist politicians unnerved by the closeness of the result have advocated making independence actually illegal, and the Secretary of State for Portsmouth has issued a series of panicky warnings that the “nationalists” must not seek the best possible outcome from the figleaf Smith Commission (or, presumably, he’ll tell his mum).

Increasingly, the “once in a lifetime” referendum looks like only the opening skirmish.

There can have been few wars where the battle lines were more clearly drawn. The frenetic last two weeks, as the No campaign’s lead crumbled under its feet, saw the state broadcaster abandon even the slightest pretence of neutrality or fairness and the press ramp up the scare stories to blood-curdling levels – willingly assisted by millionaire celebrities and CEOs of multinational companies apparently terrified out of their very wits by the thought of having to conduct business in 153 countries instead of 152 – flushed out almost all of those who’d sought to hide their allegiance, and with the exception of Andy Murray they invariably declared for the devil they knew.

So everyone in Scotland knows who can and can’t be relied on, who can and can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and where everyone’s loyalties lie. That’s no bad thing. And the upshot, it seems, is that those who believe Scotland should be a country have come to the conclusion that they can expect no help, nor even basic fairness, and must take matters entirely into their own hands.

The outpouring of activity in self-created Scottish media since the referendum has been dizzying, and pretty much impossible to keep track of. Newsnet Scotland is now being edited by veteran ex-BBC broadcaster Derek Bateman, in a move we didn’t see coming. The creators of The Fear Factor, Scotland Yet and Dateline Scotland gathered over £34,000 in funding practically overnight just to do the preparatory work for a major and exciting new project. The Common Weal appears to have secured MONTHLY funding of almost £11,000 for various works. Other grassroots efforts like iScot and the Scottish Statesman have already taken their fledgling steps.

Many of the new developments will of course fall by the wayside over the coming weeks and months, leaving only the strongest to continue. Existing entities like Wings Over Scotland will seek to build on the six-figure audiences created over the last three years. Others yet to begin will doubtless appear as time goes on, niches are identified and alliances form. But one thing seems unquestionable – advocates of independence will never again place themselves at the mercy of the old media.

This site has already made its position clear. The BBC (which has a notional duty of impartiality) and the mainstream press (which doesn’t) have shown that they cannot be trusted with even the most basic journalistic responsibility of truth. We’ve already encouraged readers to stop paying the TV licence which funds the state broadcaster (while remaining within the law) and today we go further, by suggesting that Yes supporters have no relationship whatsoever with the BBC.

Like newspapers which offer column space to a single Yes voice amid an ocean of massively skewed and virulent pro-Union propaganda as a token show of fairness, every time an independence campaigner appears on a BBC current-affairs programme it allows the Corporation to feign impartiality, thereby justifying the rest of its coverage. When criticised for bias, it can simply say “Nonsense – look, we had X and Y on last week from your side, so we must be balanced”.

Such people sometimes protest that in return for giving the BBC’s output credibility they get to deliver their pro-independence message to a wider audience, but the fact is that most Scottish politics shows have tiny audiences of already-committed politics nerds. It seems to us the height of arrogance to imagine that two or three minutes of interrupted soundbites on Scotland 2014, watched by a few thousand people who almost certainly have unshakeably entrenched views, can ever have a worthwhile effect on anything but the commentator’s own media profile.

The SNP and other political parties have a responsibility and duty to engage with the media, of course, especially when in government, even if that media shirks its own responsibilities. But nobody else does. It’s this site’s belief that to participate in the output of the BBC is to confer unwarranted legitimacy on an organisation whose behaviour over the referendum was – on the whole and with some isolated honourable exceptions – a professional disgrace. In co-operating with them, therefore, the Yes side will merely sow the seeds of its own future downfall.

A freak alignment of events has presented the independence movement with the chance of a very early second bite at the cherry. Three political outcomes in the next three years – all of them individually plausible or even probable – may yet see a second referendum in 2017 or 2018, in much more favourable circumstances.

In the intervening time, the most important thing the grassroots Yes movement could achieve would be some degree of levelling of the media field, and that means not only supporting friendly initiatives but also starving out the enemy.

Our readers probably won’t need much urging to stop buying newspapers, or linking to their revenue-generating websites other than by devices like archive.today – they already know that every penny directed away from a media that served the people of Scotland so poorly over the referendum will strengthen the efforts of those trying to build a better alternative. But it’s perhaps time that the supporters of independence spent less time shouting angrily about media bias, because anger wins few converts.

In the same way that depriving hostile newspapers of money and traffic rather than complaining that they take a position – something they’re perfectly entitled to do – is a far more effective protest, the most (indeed the only) constructive thing the Yes side could do about the BBC would be simply to shun and discredit it as the organ of the establishment that it is, rather than imagining that a few hundred people yelling outside its doors once every few months will persuade it to change its ways.

If a second chance for Yes is indeed to arrive in 2017 or thereabouts (in the form of a majority Scottish Government calling an emergency referendum in the light of the UK voting to leave the EU while Scotland votes to stay in), it simply cannot afford to meekly co-operate in its own defeat again.

If the referendum was a boxing match, the referee was part of the opponent’s team, and in those circumstances you can only win by delivering a knockout blow with your own power, not by hugging the other boxer closely and hoping for a victory on points.

[H_B]

Is this an attempt to take the heat off the Clegg debacle?

[BerwickMad]

What's this Clegg thing?

[H_B]

Am assuming he's after another influx of cash from the gullible.

Computer games reviewing market must be stagnant.

[H_B]

What's this Clegg thing?

http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php/topic/217600-nick-clegg/

[BerwickMad]

http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php/topic/217600-nick-clegg/

Oh dear. I remember a while back when I pointed out that trying to belittle people by using petal, darl, and honey was sexism, him and his best bud Casual Bystander had hissyfits. They couldn't grasp it.

I also remember when him and his apprentice that Litchie kid ridiculed me for going to the cinema with another man, throwing out gay insults. He's a nasty piece of work when you scratch under the surface.

[Confidemus]

These replies are more than I ever dreamed of. Thankyou, permaseethers x

ETA: You will of course, Berwickmad, be able to signify one solitary "gay insult" I directed your way. Be very specific.

[H_B]

He's a nasty piece of work when you scratch under the surface.

I think it's a lack of education.

It's a bit like the casual racism you see from the older generations. It's more stupidity than evilness.

[BerwickMad]

These replies are more than I ever dreamed of. Thankyou, permaseethers x

ETA: You will of course, Berwickmad, be able to signify one solitary "gay insult" I directed your way. Be very specific.

"Mummy bought me a trophy for taking part anyway. She says it's just as good as a winners trophy, so suck on that eh, eh, eh!" You as a kid, as tears roled down your cheek.

[Confidemus]

"Mummy bought me a trophy for taking part anyway. She says it's just as good as a winners trophy, so suck on that eh, eh, eh!" You as a kid, as tears roled down your cheek.

Oh dear, it would seem the seethe has made you slightly unwell. How glorious.

[BerwickMad]

These replies are more than I ever dreamed of. Thankyou, permaseethers x

ETA: You will of course, Berwickmad, be able to signify one solitary "gay insult" I directed your way. Be very specific.

Be very specific? You aren't Supras Confi. He manages to keep control of his totally ridiculous arguments. You scramble all over the place. I can just imagine how flustered you must be getting at the moment.

[Confidemus]

Be very specific? You aren't Supras Confi. He manages to keep control of his totally ridiculous arguments. You scramble all over the place. I can just imagine how flustered you must be getting at the moment.

Yes, that's right, because I'm the one who's flustered on this thread.

[BerwickMad]

The only one I can see.

[Kyle]

Fucking hell confi. Stop. You're making a spanner of yourself.

[Colkitto]

Do any of the brit nat posters on here believe the threat of independence is gone for at least 15-20 years? Genuine question..